But words are weak,-she cannot reach
By such poor steps that Beauty's crown;
How can the Muse to others teach
What were to me the banks of Traun ?
She can repeat the faithful tale
That "where thy genial waters flow,
All objects the rare crystal hail,
And cast their voices far below;
And there the stedfast echoes rest,
Till the old Sun himself goes down,
Till darkness falls on every breast,
Even on thine, transparent Traun !"
And she can say, "Where'er thou art,
Brawling 'mid rocks, or calm-embayed,
Outpouring thy abundant heart
In ample lake or deep cascade,-
Whatever dress thy sides adorn,
Fresh-dewy leaves or fir-stems brown,
Or ruby-dripping barbery thorn,
Thou art thyself, delightful Traun !
"No glacier-mountains, harshly bold, Whose peaks disturb the summer air, And make the gentle blue so cold,
And hurt our warmest thoughts, are there;
But upland meadows, lush with rills,
Soft-green as is the love-bird's down,
And quaintest forms of pine-clad hills,
Are thy fit setting, jewelled Traun !"
But the wise Muse need not be told,
Though fair and just her song may seem,
The same has oft been sung of old,
Of many a less deserving stream;
For where would be the worth of sight,
If Love could feed on blank renown?
They who have loved the Traun aright
Have sat beside the banks of Traun.
MOUNT! I have watched thee, at the fall of dew,
Array thee in thy panoply of gold,—
And then cast over it thy rosy vest,—
And last that awful robe that looks so cold,
Thy ghastly spectre-dress of nameless hue :
Then thou art least of earth, and then I love thee best.
THE CHURCH OF THE MADELEINE,
THE Attic temple whose majestic room
Contained the presence of Olympian Jove,
With smooth Hymettus round it and above,
Softening the splendour by a sober bloom,
Is yielding fast to Time's irreverent doom;
While on the then barbarian banks of Seine
That nobler type is realised again
In perfect form, and dedicate-to whom?
To a poor Syrian girl, of lowliest name,
A hapless creature, pitiful and frail
As ever wore her life in sin and shame,—
Of whom all history has this single tale,-
"She loved the Christ, she wept beside his grave,
And He, for that Love's sake, all else forgave."
If one, with prescient soul to understand
The working of this world beyond the day
Of his small life, had taken by the hand
That wanton daughter of old Magdala ;
And told her that the time was ripe to come
When she, thus base among the base, should be
More served than all the Gods of Greece and Rome,
More honoured in her holy memory,—
How would not men have mocked and she have scorned The fond Diviner ?-Plausible excuse
Had been for them, all moulded to one use
Of feeling and of thought, but We are warned
By such ensamples to distrust the sense
Of Custom proud and bold Experience.
Thanks to that element of heavenly things,
That did come down to earth, and there confound
Most sacred thoughts with names of usual sound,
And homeliest life with all a Poet sings.
The proud Ideas that had ruled and bound
Our moral nature were no longer kings,
Old Power grew faint and shed his eagle-wings,
And grey Philosophy was half uncrowned.
Love, Pleasure's child, betrothed himself to Pain ;—
Weakness, and Poverty, and Self-disdain,
And tranquil sufferance of repeated wrongs,
Became adorable ;-Fame gave her tongues,
And Faith her hearts to objects all as low
As this lorn child of infamy and woe.
IN just accordance with attentive sight,
Through airy space and round our planet ball,
The inorganic world is voiced with Light,
And Colours are the words it speaks withal.
Thus has my eye had glad experience
Of that most perfect utterance and clear tone,
With which all visible things address the sense,
In lands retiring from the northern zone.
But, oh! in what poor language, faintly caught,
Do the old features of my England greet
Her stranger-son! how powerless, how unmeet
For the free vision Italy had taught
What to expect from Nature; I must scan
Her face, I fear, no more, and look alone to Man.
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